Rest is Not Idleness

Taking some time off to heal and consider my options is not as easy as it sounds, especially not for someone who is used to a lifetime of going at full steam ahead. Taking a step (okay, a leap) back from the physical challenges of travel, and starting physical therapy, have proved to be just the thing for my dodgy old neck and my creative burnout.

This has been my summer of weaving. I've always turned to learning a new craft when my creative juices run dry. I think it's a "making" thing. It's a new label, being a maker, but it perfectly defines me. I have been a maker all of my life, and when taking a break from making quilts, it was only natural that I should need to make something else.

The tapestry bug has bitten me, hard. I'm talking the weaving kind of tapestry, not the embroidery kind. I've taken two tapestry classes this summer.

Starting last spring, Rebecca Mezoff offered a three part, comprehensive online tapestry class. She's just charming, and the class format included lots of personal interaction. I highly recommend the classes. The sample to the left is from one of the early parts of the process.

In August I attended the Michigan League of Handweavers' annual workshop retreat. What fun! Just as in quilting, weaving is bent and shaped into so many intriguing art forms, just waiting to be explored.

While there, I took a tapestry class from Nancy McRay. It was awesome! The sample above is from her class. Three days of the quiet strumming of tightly warped looms, extremely individualized lessons and wonderful encouragement, were a balm to a healing soul. (Not to mention the nightly hugs from grandbabies, the retreat being in their town.)

And here is my class final project for Rebecca's class. That's a pumpkin growing there, just in case you couldn't tell. The tapestry is only ten inches wide, so I'm having to edit, edit, edit to try to tell the story. I'm really pleased with some of it, other parts, not so much. I'm still thinking of spaces as in fabric for applique, and that's holding me back a bit. But I'll get there, probably in about a million years, but then, if it could be mastered in a day how inspiring would that be?